As she engaged the gears, Shaw bent down towards Judith. She was crumpled in a corner, seemingly in a dead faint. Or worse. Quickly Shaw examined her, felt for her heart. It was all right; and he could find no wound, no blood. He felt relief; but there was no more time to think about the girl just now. The Renault was streaking along the slippery surface again, touching ninety. Debonnair, staring ahead along the probing beams through an insect-dotted windscreen, watched the road rush to meet her and ribbon away beneath the spinning wheels. The car swung horribly, protestingly, as she took it fast round a bend, and Shaw could hear the scream of rubber.
Debonnair called out, “Think the boys’ll be behind, do you?”
“Yes.”
“Think they’ll catch up?”
“Don’t know. If they do, I’m going to get them before they get us.” Shaw had the heavy Service revolver in his hand again, and now he smashed it through the rear window. The glass cobwebbed away from the hole. He smashed again and again until he had cleared the glass away. Soon after there was a flicker of headlights behind, dancing up and down the trees, giving the thick green a look of silver. Somebody was in a hurry, was eating up the kilometres. They had had very little start, and it looked as though the pursuit was gaining fast now. Shaw called,
“Can you get any more out of her, Deb?”
“She’s going all she can.” Her voice was tense, nervy.
He said, “All right. Well — they’re coming. It must be them. And they’ve got the legs of us. Just keep going and forget about me unless I give you an order. You know what to do if I get hurt. Straight to the Embassy, get them to put you aboard the first plane for London. Ring Latymer first on the closed line. Don’t take any chances.”
There was a small choking sound from Debonnair, and then Shaw put everything out of his mind except the job immediately in hand. He turned back to the window. Twin beams were coming up very fast now, dancing up a slight rise, round a bend, flickering again on the trees and the verge-stones, gleaming on the wet surface. He heard the roar of a powerful engine, the scream of tyres as the car came round that bend, cutting it very close to the verge. Then he saw the stab of flame, heard the smack of the bullets, the buzz of them singing past like vicious bees along the sides of the racing, rocking car.
He snapped, “Slow a little, Deb. Just enough to put ’em off their stroke… now!”
He hooked an arm over the empty rear window’s rim, steadying himself; even so he lurched backwards as the Renault jerked suddenly under slight footbrake pressure. He recovered himself, held steady again. Debonnair had got his intentions beautifully. Shaw levelled his gun through the window. He was utterly cool, icy, almost detached… as though he was in a rifle-range. Just as he had intended, the pursuing driver had been shaken up by the sudden drop in speed. He swerved a little, ran up close, and then as he rammed on his brakes the firing stopped. Shaw could imagine the men inside tumbling about as the vehicle checked so abruptly; and in that moment he squeezed the trigger of his heavy revolver, and it kicked back in his fist, once, twice… and then the firing began again. There was a tearing jag of pain in the flesh of his left upper arm and he felt the thick surge of blood; and then he fired a third time, as his sights came dead on to the pallid face of the man behind the wheel. His hand was perfectly steady and his aim was beautiful. The driver’s face simply seemed to erase itself and the vehicle pulled right over to its offside, turned around, reared on to two wheels, climbed the white-painted stones marking the verge, leapt into the air and fell back with a splintering crash on to its canvas roof.
Shaw called, “Stop her, Deb!”
She screamed the Renault to a halt and pulled into the side. She asked breathlessly, “You’re not going back there?”
He licked his lips, which had gone very dry. “I’ll have to. May be some one alive. And I might find out more of what Donovan was trying to say, if there’s anyone fit to talk.”
He pushed the door open and jumped out, looked back quickly at Debonnair’s white face. He told her gruffly, “Stay inside. Look after Judith. Don’t follow me — that’s an order.” Then he turned away, went back along the road, keeping in the shelter of the trees, his gun ready in his hand, moved swiftly and silently through the darkness, only his white evening shirt-front faintly visible as a smudge in the night. Insects flew into his face; an owl, disturbed in its nightly occupations, hooted loudly, eerily, went past with a whirr of outraged wings. No traffic came along the road. Already there was a flicker of light from the wreck and then, just a moment after, a lick of flame curled up. Shaw put on speed; as he came near the shattered car there was a loud whoompf and flames shot roaring into the air, pinnacled from a surround of liquid fire which had the whole car in its grasp now, pinnacled almost to the treetops. The heat reached out to Shaw, singed his skin, his hair, his clothing. He pulled his dinner-jacket collar up around his neck and face and edged as near as he could. The car’s roof had crushed so that the chassis lay flush with the earth. An arm stuck out, pinned between metal and ground; there was a pool of blood where broken glass had ripped an artery. The arm was still, was not feeling the red flame. Shaw’s mind penetrated into the car, visualized the heap of tumbled bodies, broken bodies thrown about in the grotesque attitudes of sudden and violent death… and then he was forced back as the breeze fanned the flames into a roaring inferno with a white-hot metal core, a funeral pyre from which came the sharp crack of exploding cartridges, the zing of aimlessly driven bullets.
Shaw turned away, put up his gun, and wiped his streaming face with the sleeve of his jacket. He was drenched through and through with sweat, and not only from that intense heat; he was trembling, his legs felt weak, as though they were about to crumple, and there was a dreadful nausea rising up inside him. He found he was cursing savagely, blaspheming against the Outfit and against Latymer, against the whole set of circumstances which had forced him into this kind of game in the first place. He felt no pity for those men, for they had killed John Donovan — but the manner of their death revolted him.
Then he ran back to the Renault and slid into the driving seat. Debonnair was in the back with Judith. He heard the girl sobbing. Debonnair leaned forward, asked tensely: “Well?”
“Nothing living.”
She nodded, reached out and put a hand on his cheek,
gently, understandingly. She said, “That arm, Esmonde. You’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing much.”
“I’m going to put something on it, anyway.” She added, “Don’t look.”
Obediently he sat there; he heard a rustling as Debonnair stripped off some of her clothing, heard the ripping of fabric. She said, “Can you get your coat off?”
“I think so.” He got out into the road, and she came to help him. She rolled up his shirt-sleeve. It wasn’t a bad wound, but it was bleeding quite a lot. Tightly she bound it up, asked: “Want me to go on driving?”
He shook his head. “I’ll manage. Get in the back with Judith, there’s a good girl. Do what you can for her, Deb.”
“Of course.” They got back in, and as he started up Shaw tried not to listen to the girl’s desperate crying, to the sobs which were shaking her body as she lay in Debonnair’s arms. He put his whole mind to his driving and he sent the Renault flat out for Paris, the Faubourg St Honoré, and the British Embassy.